Biographical Data :

Dr. Zakaria, also known as Dr. Zak, was Britain’s leading forensic entomologist, known to police and courts alike, over the last quarter century.

Dr. Zakaria produced an impressive thesis on blowfly eggs and larvae and their development while his study for a Ph. D. in Durham University. In 1984 he moved to Cambridge University and he published, among other publications, his book Blowflies (volume 23 in the Naturalists’ Handbook series). In 1995, he was awarded John Grundy Medal for Medical Entomology by Royal Army Medical College.

Dr. Zakaria tirelessly campaigned to raise standards in forensic science and lately became more and more involved in cases of wrongful imprisonment due to flawed or fraudulent forensic science. He continued writing scholarly articles, books and research papers. He also wrote for a wider readership, notably his acclaimed, ‘Maggots, Murder and Men’ and ‘Every Contact Leaves a Trace’.

Dr. Zakaria Erzinclioglu being a Turkish in origin was partly brought up in Egypt and Sudan and partly in England. It was while in England that he contacted polio as a child, which left him with a limp. He was a man of immense integrity, compassion and courage in standing up for what he believed to be true and just.